In the News 20.03.15 : Today’s Articles of Interest from around the Internets

“Legend has it that, in 1588, a Spanish galleon sank off the coast of Westray, one of Scotland’s Orkney islands, and that the sailors who weren’t dashed on the rocky spires were welcomed by the locals. Today Westrayans with dark hair or olive skin are said to be descendants of these lucky sailors. It is a romantic origin story, and it’s not implausible, but in the absence of solid records it’s hard to test. When I caught the ferry from Orkney’s Mainland and drove to the village of Pierowall’s tranquil bay, I saw a lot of lovely blue eyes but no dark-haired beauties. In the town archives, I read about the sailors and leafed through old photos. Here and there were pictures of olive-skinned boys, looking reasonably Spanish. But the records didn’t reveal much about who they actually were or even if they were native to the island.”

“Whenever you read stories about identical twins separated at birth, they tend to follow the template set by the most remarkable of them all: the “two Jims”. James Springer and James Lewis were separated as one-month-olds, adopted by different families and reunited at age 39. When University of Minnesota psychologist Thomas Bouchard met them in 1979, he found, as a Washington Post article put it, both had “married and divorced a woman named Linda and remarried a Betty. They shared interests in mechanical drawing and carpentry; their favourite school subject had been maths, their least favourite, spelling. They smoked and drank the same amount and got headaches at the same time of day.” The similarities were uncanny. A great deal of who they would turn out to be appears to have been written in their genes.”

“Durst’s hot shot Houston-based attorney, Dick DeGuerin, had admitted in court that his client had in fact killed Black in a struggle and dismembered his corpse—claiming that Durst had done so out of fear for his life, then disposed of the evidence fearing the consequences. The jury bought it, and acquitted Durst of murder. With that new lease on life, it was believed that Robert Durst would go underground.”

“Over time, the scientific literature that attempts to explain NDEs as the result of physical changes in a stressed or dying brain has also, commensurately, grown. The causes posited include an oxygen shortage, imperfect anesthesia, and the body’s neurochemical responses to trauma. NDErs dismiss these explanations as inadequate. The medical conditions under which NDEs happen, they say, are too varied to explain a phenomenon that seems so widespread and consistent.”

“Terrorists calculate that when the enraged enemy uses its massive power against them, it will raise a much more violent military and political storm than the terrorists themselves could ever create. During every storm, many unforeseen things happen. Mistakes are made, atrocities are committed, public opinion wavers, questions are asked, neutrals change their stance and the balance of power shifts. The terrorists cannot foretell what the result will be, but they have a much better chance fishing in such troubled waters than when the political sea is calm.”